"Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is a fresh, enlightening example of how to take a tragic American show-business story and make it funny, warm and terrifically entertaining. A three-timing pop star falls from the top of the charts into a drug addiction that cuts his life short. Yet you walk away humming the tunes and itching to dance.

This energetic look at the life and loves of 1950s doo-wop sensation Frankie Lymon, directed by Gregory Nava ("Selena"), brims with joyful spirit and raucous comedy. It also mines a melodramatic vein of flaky romance and the anguish of a beautiful young talent taking a fatal nosedive.

"Why Do Fools Fall in Love," now out on video, deftly juggles a surprising number of elements, but they all work. This comedy-drama looks at the main man through the eyes of those who loved and hated him: his three wives.

Larenz Tate is superb as Lymon, the boy-wonder front man for the Teenagers, a vocal quintet straight out of Harlem. Tate ("love jones," "Menace II Society") lip-synchs to Lymon's music and captures his magic, even down to the splits that drove crowds wild.

But the biggest stars are Halle Berry ("Bulworth"), Vivica A. Fox ("Soul Food," "Independence Day") and Lela Rochon ("Waiting to Exhale"). As the three Mrs. Lymons, each revels in stories about the man who seduced, courted, cajoled and deserted her.

These actresses deliver memorably at every turn as the wives compete in court for Lymon's estate after the former teen idol, washed up at 26, died of a drug overdose in 1968. Episodic flashbacks examine the three romances over more than a decade. Even as they try to outmaneuver one another in court, the film does an adroit job of nudging the three women toward bonding into a curious sisterhood.

The music is a treat. Lymon's title tune (covered by Diana Ross in 1981), other Teenagers hits such as "Goody Goody," "I'm Not a Juvenile Delinquent" and "Baby Baby," Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" and the Platters' classics "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "The Great Pretender" and "He's Mine" are all there.